Pope Francis’ accuser turns up the pressure

ROME — The archbishop who accused Pope Francis of covering up a cardinal’s sexual misconduct has escalated his offensive with new, detailed accusations that put increasing pressure on a pontiff who the archbishop and his supporters say has misled the faithful and should resign.

The accuser, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, initially said he would turn off his phone and disappear into hiding for fear of his safety. But he then offered new accounts in conservative Roman Catholic news outlets.

In a new letter published late Friday by the conservative website LifeSiteNews, the archbishop gave his version of events leading up to the pope’s controversial September 2015 meeting with Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue samesex marriage licenses. His description contradicted the Vatican’s own account of that private meeting, maintaining that Francis’ lieutenants lied to the public about the encounter, which threatened to eclipse the pope’s entire trip to the United States that month.

A letter by Viganò made public last weekend alleged that the Vatican hierarchy was complicit in covering up accusations that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had sexually abused seminarians and that Pope Francis knew about the abuses years before they became public. It also said that rather than punishing the cardinal, Francis empowered him to help choose powerful American bishops.

Viganò has aligned himself with a conservative group of powerful prelates, in both the Vatican and the United States, who have seized on the clerical sex abuse scandal to try to damage Francis and his agenda. They believe the pope is abandoning the church’s rules and traditions through his shift away from culture-war issues like abortion in favor of an emphasis on inclusion, including toward gays, whom Viganò and his allies blame for pedophilia in the church.

The archbishop writes that he was spurred to weigh in again by a New York Times article this past week quoting a Chilean abuse survivor, Juan Carlos Cruz. Cruz said Francis had told him that Viganò sneaked Davis into the Vatican Embassy in Washington for a private meeting in 2015 and that the pope did not know who she was or why she was controversial.

Cruz recalled the pope saying to him, “I was horrified and I fired that nuncio,” or papal ambassador — a reference to Viganò, who was the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States.

Viganò writes in the new letter: “One of them is lying: either Cruz or the pope? What is certain is that the pope knew very well who Davis was, and he and his close collaborators had approved the private audience.” Viganò did not return a request for comment Saturday. But in the new letter, he lays out in detail his version of events in which he says he personally briefed the pope on Sept. 23, 2015.

SPENCER PLATT / GETTY IMAGES Pope Francis gives a short speech followed by the Angelus from the window of his apartment over St. Peter’s Square on Sunday.